Email marketing is amazing. It provides you with some excellent tools for online sales. However, these tools are useless without a great strategy. Many ecommerce marketers simply follow the previous practices of the market. This can get stale and boring.

Focus in on what’s important. Things like:

Effective and innovative ways to get happier customers

Increasing repeat business

A larger share of the market

Repeatable, scalable practices

Following these five strategies will help you do just that.

1. Segmentation

Not all customers are the same. Therefore, you shouldn’t treat them as though they are on the same customer journey. Segmentation provides you the capability of tailoring emails to the customer’s actions. You can separate your subscribers and customers into different segments.

Segmentation gives you the ability to divide subscribers into groupings for more specific targeting.

Once you have your list separated, you can send subscribers on different journeys with relevant deals and educational information. This will help you target your customers who are inactive differently than those who have just made a purchase.

Smart segmentation can be used in many ways to improve your sales. It allows you to send messages to groups that may address their specific concerns and where they are in the customer journey.

2. A/B Testing

A/B testing is essential to the email marketing automation strategy. It allows you to try out more than one idea at a time. You can test out two variations of the same message to see which one works best.

Here are some great ideas for A/B testing you can start doing today:

Test out different subject lines with to see if % or $ work

Try your subject lines with and without emojis.

Test subject lines with and without the subscriber’s name.

Try out different versions of the subject line.

Test the email campaign with your business name, and your first name to see which has better open rates.

3. Targeted Signup forms

Email marketing automation should be all about the subscriber. It should target their specific interests to keep them happy.

A great way to ensure that you are targeting the customers’ interests is to have them sign up through the popup forms on your website. However, advanced marketers tailor email marketing even more. They follow some stricter rules.

#1 Avoid showing Popups to Current Subscribers

To improve your visitors’ experience, disable popups specifically for those that are already signed up to your campaigns and newsletters.

This is a simple task. You just need to ensure you have the specific URL from your UTM parameters. The links that connect to your store have similar kinds of UTM parameters. You can use these parameters to disable popups to visitors coming in from your newsletters.

To disable popups to visitors from your newsletters, simply target them by URL.

To disable the popup, paste in part of the UTM, specifically this part:

utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

Anyone who has that UTM parameter will not see any popups.

#2 Display popups to specific visitors

You can ensure that popups appear only for specific visitors. For example, you can show your popups only to people visiting specific pages, such as your product page.

This will allow you to provide those visitors with specific offerings.

#3 Obtain more info for better segmentation

Standard forms only ask for emails. However, you can request more information which will allow for better segmentation. Some things to request may be country, birthdate, and city.

Birthday emails have one of the highest opening rates with 5x the conversions of regular emails. Therefore, it is a great idea to gather the birthdates of your customers.

4. Welcome series

74.4 % of customers expect a welcome email when they subscribe, according to a survey done by BlueHornet.

Welcome emails generate 3 times higher open and click rates. They can generate 5 times higher revenue compared to other emails.

Welcome emails introduce your customers to your brand within a series of three emails. They encourage your visitors to make a purchase within a targeted period of time.

First email

The first email should ensure that the recipient understands your business. This is the time to make a great impression.

Display big, beautiful images. The body text should focus on the store’s beliefs. Your goal should be to build the brand’s image.

Second email

The second email focuses on a behind-the-scenes look at the company. It reviews sourcing the products. This could be a great time for creating an emotional connection with them. The emotional connection will lead to better customer relationships and repeat purchases.

Third Email

The final email in the brand-building series helps to accomplish two things:

Shows happy customers

Offers a discount on products

Showing happy customers and testimonials gives the social proof that your brand is excellent. A call to action at the end of the email and a discount on the products will encourage sales. Then, display the offer at the end.

5. Birthday series

A birthday email can be sent automatically to the subscriber on their birthday. This demonstrates personal attention and offers a discount for their next order.

According to Salesforce research, 75% of companies that send birthday emails view them as effective.

A good birthday series includes sending a text message to the subscriber wishing them a Happy Birthday, and letting them know a gift is in their inbox.

In the email include a discount, free shipping or anything you think is appropriate.

Birthday Message 1

Set the SMS/text message to go out in the morning on the recipient’s birthday.

Birthday Message 2

Send an email offering a gift. The email should include the following:

Free shipping or a discount

Clear Call-to-action (CTA)

Time to redeem the discount. Give them at least a week to redeem.

Our birthday email then would look something like this:

These five strategies will help you increase your email marketing automation in 2019. They provide more personalized messages to your target market. For that reason, many people will respond better to them.